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The Ultimate Affair


Jazz artist Emily Braden shares how vocalists get hot and steamy again – with music.

Singing is that one thing for me.

It alters me chemically, rewrites my reality, enhances and romances me, cleanses and connects me, drugs, heals and soothes me, forgives and accepts me, intensifies and satisfies me.

Such a hold it has – and I am lucky to know such a love affair.

Yet, singing is not the easiest career path.

It’s easy to drift from that love; how do I get back to it?

See a Killer Show by an Inspiring Vocalist

Here I am struggling to make it in New York City after successful gigging careers in smaller towns.

There’s the pressure of being in a place saturated with good singers, trying to get gigs, pay my rent, hold down a part time job – and deal with all the negative messages one’s brain can send.

How do I get inspired?

I attend my “church”: a great vocal show at a cool venue.

When I am thrilled by someone else’s vocal performance, or instrumental performance for that matter, my inner voice says to me: ‘you’ve got to keep going, keep reaching for your dreams.’

Remind Myself of My Goals

I write down my goals in a journal – and I am very specific.

I write that I want to perform at particular venues, or that I want to be an opening act or a back-up singer for a specific group.

Being extremely clear about what you want opens you up to possibilities that are in line with your biggest dreams.

As one of a myriad of vocalists trying to make it in this city, it’s easy to feel so small in the huge world of music.

That’s why I name my goals, revisit them, check on my progress and remind myself of where I want to go.

(I also write down the negative stuff – it helps me to get it out of my system.)

Be a Sleuth with My Ego

I had an ‘A-ha’ moment the other day:

The same thing that tells us that we are better than others is the same thing that tells us that we are not good enough or we don’t deserve greatness.

The ego tells us whatever is necessary to protect us from a sometimes hard reality.

Isn’t the greatest enemy between us and our dreams found within?

When I feel unworthy, I try to be quiet, look at my ego and examine the messages that keep me from personal progress.

When I took my part time job speaking Spanish in a nursing home, my ego said, ‘You are a performer; what the hell are you doing here? Look how far you’ve fallen.’

When I got in touch with my inner voice, I heard more creative message:

‘All experiences enrich my music.’

When I am on stage, I connect with people — I also connect with them here at this nursing home.

These genuine one-on-one connections inspire me with new lyrics and musical ideas.

An Affair that Lasts for Life

I don’t want just a one-night stand with my vocal work.

After all, a great affair, one that is life-long, is a many splendored thing:

I focus on how to promote my album, exercise, voice lessons, writing song ideas, getting art supplies for my new album design, submitting for the Theolonius Monk Jazz competition – there’s so many sides to my musical life and each day I can ‘date’ a different side.

I don’t always need to be on stage.

But I always need to be in love.

Vocalist, composer and lyricist Emily Braden grew up in Boise, Idaho. She currently lives in New York City and is preparing for the US release of her debut album Soul Walk in the spring of 2011.

Useful Sites

Emily Braden’s Site and MySpace

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The Road to Your Vocalist Dreams


Petra Tool is an artist who examines…artists.

A gifted portrait artist, she explores the personalities of gifted performers, interviewing them about their talent, passions, the problems they face, their insecurities and secrets of their success.

Under her intense gaze, vocalists may find that the wisdom to pursue their dreams is inside, waiting to come out.

Amber Gomaa really stands out on the stage.

With her black curly hair and delicate blue dress, she immediately caught my attention. (See full sized image below.)

And when she ended her solo with a perfect long high note, her arms open wide and a radiant smile, I knew I wanted to depict that mesmerizing moment.

But does a vocalist always live in that moment?

During our conversation, sitting on a tiny café terrace on a hot summer evening, I noticed longings and uncertainties beneath the surface.

She shared her feelings with me: “I can get frustrated from time to time. Especially when I’m writing my own songs. When I try a few lines and it’s not as good as I hoped for, I quit. That’s not because I’m undisciplined, it’s because I’m unsure. I should continue and pass judgments later. I want to focus on writing music, learn to play the guitar and the piano, and improve my singing.”

Every talented person is critical of his own creations. You might call it self reflection—until it causes you to procrastinate.

Then we start believing there will come a better time for our projects in the future…and sometimes we may be right.

But most of the time we have to accept the fact we have to create in the middle of our not-so-ideal circumstances, accompanied by our own negative thoughts.

Was Amber procrastinating?

I didn’t know. But I also noticed that, although she was a bit anxious, she knew what she wanted. She had her priorities right:

“I’m a backing vocalist to Alain Clark, who is very successful right now. I’ve learned so much from him—he is authentic, remains close to who he is. Prince, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson: they may be eccentric, but are also authentic. If your success comes from authenticity, then it will last.

Until I met Alain, music was not my priority. I didn’t think I was good enough and was afraid to dream about a future in music. Now I know I’m a good singer. I want to have my own album in five years.”

When we said our goodbyes, I had no idea what she would do.

Would she find someone to help her to write songs, take some classes, take a different career path?

Recently she surprised me with the news she had applied for the Conservatory! She was excited about it.

It might satisfy her need to learn, and make her more sure of herself.

And yes, other solutions might also have worked, like co-writing with someone she really trusts.

There are many roads to your dream, and one shouldn’t get lost finding the ‘right’ or ‘best’ one. After all, every choice has its pros and cons.

You’re on the right track when you’re moving towards your goal and are enthusiastic about your journey.

Just like Amber…

Petra Tool is a Dutch artist and talent expert. She’s specialized in interviewing and painting talented and passionate people. Most of her models are dancers and musicians. You can find more information on her website: www.petratool.nl/

Painting: Blue Lady Sings (Amber Gomaa) – 70×100 cm – watercolour- Petra Tool

Useful Sites
The Art of Petra Tool

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2-to-1 Breathing


Gerald Klickstein, author of the landmark book The Musician’s Way, describes a potent technique that helps vocalists dispel distraction, neutralize stress, and sing from the heart.

If there’s a more spiritually powerful art form than music, I haven’t encountered it.

Nonetheless, when it comes time for us musicians to rehearse or perform, it isn’t necessarily easy for us to connect with our spiritual nature.

Often, we deal with interference owing to how we react to various pressures, especially the pressure of performing in public.

But whatever the interference, 2-to-1 breathing helps us > read more

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The Freaked Out Vocalist


How do you judge the judgments? Vocal Coach Mary Beth Felker shares her solutions to mental chaos…

As a busy vocal coach, it had been 10 years since I had done a solo gig outside the recording booth and much longer than that since I had done a long, multi-song performance.

You would think that as I again faced the stage all past performance memories would have faded away and I would be starting with a clean slate.

Instead, it seemed like my body was completely ready to recall every single insecurity and replay each negative tape from the past 25 years.

So what was really going on inside of my head? > read more

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Vocalists Improve Their Jen Ratio


Susan Raeburn, PhD, shares the idea that the key to improving the quality of your vocal work may lie in improving your Jen ratio:

Confucius introduced the concept of Jen to refer to kindness, humanity, and reverence and bringing the “good things in others to completion.”

But what does this have to do with being a vocalist?

Dr. Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, describes the science behind positive human emotions such as gratitude, humor, compassion and awe, and suggests that one can increase the meaning in one’s life by improving what he calls “the Jen ratio.” > read more

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Creativity: Don’t Think – Do.

Dr. Susan Raeburn shares with vocalists a way out of the creative rut.

Last week we identified self-care as a key part in each stage of the creative process.

We looked at Barbara’s challenge of feeling inadequate and subsequently abandoning her CD project.

Today, I want you to consider steps ahead you could take in your creative processes.

We need to do much more than “think” about it; thinking can keep us mired in our creative rut so, I invite you to try the following exercise.

EXERCISE: Taking Care of Yourself During the Creative Process

Think of something creative you are trying to accomplish now, perhaps a specific project.

Grab a journal or a blank piece of paper. Sit down in a quiet place and spend just a few minutes asking yourself the following questions: > read more

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Care Enough to Create

When you feel that nothing you’ve done vocally is any good…it’s time to really start caring. Susan Raeburn PhD points the way forward for vocalists.

Barbara’s Catastrophe

Barbara was happiest when singing her own songs.

She’d long been an accomplished vocalist and had done some albums with friends but her dream was always to record a CD of her own material.

When the time finally came to move this dream to the top of her priority list, she began with a strong start; Barbara’s first five songs flowed easily as she’d been hearing them in her head for months.

With the writing going smoothly, she maintained the Self Care improvements she’d made in various areas.

Barbara then hit some familiar roadblocks with her project; she experienced “fits and starts”, ending up with a handful of half-finished songs.

While she knew that frustrations on her project were inevitable, when the going got tough she started to lose perspective, scare herself, and catastrophize: “I’ll never complete this project” and “maybe it ALL sounds like crap”.

Barbara feared that the setbacks meant she was “not talented enough” to complete a whole CD. Her muse had left her and she felt sorry for herself.

The key for Barbara (and us) is to understand how to better practice Self Care in each part of the song-writing journey.

Self Care as Muse to the Creative Process

In creativity, self care means identifying and overcoming those personal barriers which prevent you from expressing yourself fully and from doing your creative work on a regular basis.

These barriers may be emotional, behavioral, social, situational, existential, spiritual, or a combination of them all.

Consider Self Care as a muse to your creative process. How are you treating your precious muse?

Taking Care In Each Stage

Having looked at various parts of the self-care equation in previous articles, let’s turn our attention to how you’re actually taking care of yourself while you’re creating: have you built self-care into each stage of the creative process?

Although we know that the creative process is not really so simple, it can be helpfully described in these stages:

• Preparing – beginning, researching, assembling needed facts or materials before the fact

• Incubating – gestation of the ideas and materials, assimilation into our existing mental outlines

• Working and Revising – finding solutions/working out the details of what will work

• Completing – making art/actually doing it

Additionally, we may include other practical stages:

• Promoting – sharing/self-promoting/selling your work

• Returning to normal life – unwinding following completion of a project.

As you consider your own creative process, self-reflect on how you take care of your self during the different stages. If these stages feel too confusing just imagine “the Beginning/the Middle/the End” and go from there.

Whether or not you wish to write a song or to find new creative ways of approaching vocal performance, self care is crucial to your path forward.

Next week I’ll introduce you to an exercise that can clear the way to creating.

Useful Links:

SPAM in the Vocalist’s Brain

Creative Recovery

Susan Raeburn, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist. She is the co-author of Creative Recovery. Susan maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Berkeley, Calif., and is a staff psychologist in the Chemical Dependency Services program at Kaiser Permanente. Susan’s mother, Ginnie Powell, was a professional vocalist during the Big Band era, singing with the orchestras of Gene Krupa, Harry James, and Boyd Raeburn.

© Susan Raeburn December 2009.

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Vocal Relationships That Work


Barbara’s Venue

Barbara showed up at the venue to find, yet again, that the keyboard stand had not been replaced, the mic leads were crackling and two of the main lights were still broken.

She’d been over this territory with the venue manager at least three times before; he was always apologetic and nice, assuring her that he would take care of it but he’d still done nothing and now Barbara was really pissed off.

In the past she would have swallowed her anger, felt resentful and played the gig feeling distracted, having been well-trained in both her family and her first marriage to feel powerless and dismiss her real feelings. Next she would have either undermined her financial position by inventing an excuse to refuse the next gig even though she needed the money, or performed with a transparently “bad attitude.”  Fortunately, she now had better options.

If you want to hear how Barbara solved it, scroll down to the end of the article now.  First, though, I’d like you to consider how to move ahead in all types of relationships.

> read more

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SPAM In The Vocalist’s Brain


Barbara relentlessly criticizes herself for her lack of musical success, for the quality of her singing voice…for her very existence.

An admitted perfectionist, Barbara never feels fully satisfied with her performance. Before the gig she anticipates all the things that could go wrong—or that went wrong once at a previous show. She filters out all of the positive feedback and magnifies the negative. After the gig, she does the same.

How could this be?  She’s an attractive American jazz singer who has solid experience of singing in clubs. For the last ten years she has been accompanied by her second husband Gene, a gifted pianist who has worked consistently to make a living as a musician doing both solo and ensemble jobs. Together, they’ve been able to work regularly, achieving modest success with CD sales and tours.

When all is said and done, the most pernicious issue Barbara actually faces is her habit of relentlessly criticizing herself.

> read more

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Singing The Blues: The Vocalist and Depression

Are dramatic mood swings and despair a necessary part of a creative and productive singing career? In an exclusive interview with VoiceCouncil magazine, Eric Maisel shares how singers can stop meaning from leaking out of their lives.

When Meaning Leaks Out

Your book The Van Gogh Blues has become hugely popular. Why write about such a depressing subject?
I couldn’t avoid it. I’ve been working with creative people and performing artists for several decades, trying to understand the most important issues in their lives and depression was a recurring issue. The more I looked at it, the more I realized that artists were suffering from a certain kind of depression.

Let’s step back for a minute: what is depression?
Well, the prevailing theory calls depression an illness with biological, psychological, and/or social roots. There’s a hodgepodge of ideas around depression rather than one coherent theory. Creative people suffer no more or no less than anyone else in the areas of biology, psychology or sociology. However, artists do suffer from a form of depression which is often ignored by counselors and clinicians: existential depression.

> read more

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